


Encore

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Geek & Sundry RPF, Sagas of Sundry: Madness (Web Series), The Wicked + The Divine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Fix-It, Gen, Genderbending, Genderfluid Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 20:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12967884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: Fenly wasn’t expecting to fall backoutof the void.





	Encore

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fusion of _Sagas of Sundry: Madness_ , _The Wicked + The Divine_ , and _Geek and Sundry RPF_ , and is intended as a fix-it fic for ‘The Black Door’. I can’t explain it beyond that.
> 
> Benzaiten is the Japanese Buddhist goddess of everything that flows: water, time, words, speech, eloquence, music and by extension, knowledge.
> 
> * * *

A voice in the darkness of the void. Kind, not dark or brittle. Matter-of-fact. Mourning.

_You are of the Pantheon. You will be loved. You will be hated. You will be brilliant. Within two years, you will be dead._

These words: seeping into what’s left of Fenly’s dwindling consciousness. It’s cold. So cold. The stars are going out, one by one.

_That’s all right_ , he thinks.  _I’m already dead_.

*

Time and space become irrelevant for a while.

*

He wasn’t expecting to fall back  _out_  of the void.

*

“Benzaiten.  _Benzaitennyo_. (Jesus fucking Christ.)  _Xander_.” The voice is female, not void, slightly exasperated.

Fenly blinks and then almost leaps out of his seat, because he’s millimetres away from putting his eye out with a mascara wand, and also he’s alive. Still cold, because the aircon is blasting, but not dead cold, and the only blue on his face is a smear of glitter, rather than cyanosis.

“Abby? Selina?”

“You,” the redheaded woman leaning over his shoulder says, “need more sleep. Also fewer projects, although try telling  _any_  of you people that, I don’t know  _why_  you bother. If I were a goddess— ”

“Which you totally already are,” someone off to their right says. Also female. Also not void.

“Thank you, Amy. Yeah. I still don’t know why you don’t just do the deity thing without all the side projects.”

Fenly blinks again, and tears trickle from his eyes, because it’s the first time he’s done it in a full minute, too stunned by, well, everything, to remember basic autonomic functions. He’s sitting in front of a well-lit mirror at a makeup bench. Not his apartment, not void, clearly backstage somewhere judging from how heavily he’s made up: this is designed to make him not look washed out under spotlights or on camera.

Off to his right, Amy starts doing vocal warmups, and instinct compels him to join in. His voice is higher. Not higher than Amy’s, but higher than his own.

There is a reason for that, and he feels like it’s staring him right in the face.

Someone knocks on the open door. “Amy, Bonnie, ma’am, we’re nearly ready for you.”

“Don’t call her  _ma’am_ ,” Bonnie says, dragging a brush through her hair. “Benzaiten’s fine. Or just call him Xander.”

The black-clad crewmember—Fenly flinches,  _cultist_?—slinks off muttering something about stage names and running sheets.

This is interesting. Fenly’s not dead, and also he is apparently at least two other people, one of whom is—

He looks into the mirror again, past the layers of stage makeup, and then thinks to look  _down_  from his face, and a yelp is surprised from his throat.

“Yeah,” Bonnie says, nonchalantly reaching into his cleavage with a wet wipe. “I did  _say_  you couldn’t feasibly fit that much rice into your mouth.”

“I’m a woman,” Fenly says stupidly.

“Oh, okay,” Amy says, leaning into the mirror beside the two of them to touch up her eyeshadow. She’s magnificent in a flowing blue medieval-style dress. When Fenly looks down he realizes that  _so is he_. Well, his dress isn’t blue, but it’s still a  _dress_. “Thanks for letting me know; I’ll pass it on to Erika so she gets your name and pronouns right.” She smiles widely. “Gather Your Musicians was  _such_  a great idea.” She pats his head, kisses Bonnie’s cheek, and swishes out of the room in a crinkle of taffeta.

Bonnie gives him a fond look. “Sorry, Bennie. I didn’t realize.”

“That’s okay. Sometimes I feel like I need a rotating name tag.” The words aren’t  _quite_  his own, but  _boy_  does he empathize with the sentiment. “Can I get you to fix this? I feel like I’m giving myself spider legs.”

Taking the mascara wand, Bonnie fusses over him for a minute. Fenly tries to line everything up.  _I died. But now I’m not dead, I’m part of the Pantheon. But within two years I’ll be dead again. Also, either I’m a guy named Xander or a girl named Benzaiten. A_ goddess _named Benzaiten_.

“The bright side about your gender fluidity,” Bonnie says with the air of someone who’s said this before and is trying to be reassuring, “is that ‘Library Bards’ is gender neutral.” She gives him a cheerful smile.

A  _bard_? Obviously not an actual literal medieval bard. Actual literal medieval bards don’t have tech guys wearing headsets sticking their heads into hair and makeup giving them a two minute warning. Probably. Fenly wasn’t actually around in the Middle Ages, so he’s not sure. Although considering everything that’s happened to him in the last twelve hours, maybe he was around in the Middle Ages and has just forgotten.

“What do we sing?” he asks, immediately wishing he’d phrased it less cluelessly.

“Oh, um, I have the set list somewhere here, hold on.” Bonnie’s humming to herself as she pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to him. Scanning the list of song titles, something  _clicks_  in Fenly’s mind—or Xander’s mind, or Benzaiten’s mind—and yes, this is familiar and he can do this, or at least he can be along for the ride while  _someone_  in this crowded brain does it.

His heart aches for those he left behind. He wonders if they’re all right, wonders if they got the door closed, kept the machine on. Somehow he doesn’t doubt that they made him proud.

“Let’s do this,” Fenly says, rising from his chair.

Bonnie fistbumps him. “Library Bards!”

“Library Bards,” Fenly echoes, and his face hurts, and it’s because he’s smiling.

Two years may not be a long time. But it is  _time_ , and this is a  _place_ , and it’s not the timeless void and he?

He is a star.

 


End file.
